2017 Arkansas ASLA Award Winners

The Arkansas Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) is proud to announce the 2017 Arkansas ASLA Awards winners. The awards were selected by a jury comprised of design professionals from the ASLA Prairie Gateway Chapter located in Kansas and Missouri, as well as design professionals from the faculty at Kansas State University.

In July of 2012, the City of Little Rock was awarded a $900,000 EPA federal grant by the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission (ANRC) to develop a water quality demonstration project to be implemented on Main Street. The project was to include work in the 100, 200, 300, and 500 blocks of Main Street to demonstrate the benefits of green infrastructure applications such as porous pavers, tree wells, rain gardens, and other water filtration practices to enhance water quality.

A primary goal was to restore a connection to the hydrologic cycle within the urban environment while educating the community about such techniques and their benefits. As an educational component, the City of Little Rock partnered with eStem Public Charter School. Upon completion, the project will be used by students at all levels as a living laboratory to learn about water quality.

Honor Award for General Design – Development Consultants Inc.: Pi Beta Phi Entry Gate and Formal Entrance to the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas.

In 2008, alumni of Pi Beta Phi approached the University of Arkansas with the idea of giving a significant gift that would both enhance the campus and commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sorority’s Arkansas chapter. The alumni committee was presented with concepts for gates of various sizes at several key locations, and chose the most prominent location nearest the heart of campus in view of the university’s iconic original building, Old Main. In addition to the monumental gate, the plan included the extension of an existing brick pedestrian way to the campus edge and a complete redesign of two acres of landscape surrounding the site, including the re-establishment of an elm allée, significant re-grading, and new utility infrastructure.

Honor Award for Communications- Kimball Erdman, University of Arkansas, Department of Landscape Architecture, Fay Jones School of Architecture & Design: If Walls Could Talk: The Story of the Hicks Property, at Rush Historic District on the Buffalo National River, Arkansas.

A stone retaining wall emerges from the forest in a prominent bend of the access road to Rush Landing, a popular destination for paddlers on the Buffalo River in north‐central Arkansas. Even as a ruin, the wall lends an air of prominence to an otherwise forgotten landscape. Stairs beckon from the dense undergrowth, inviting imagination and mystery. What was this place? What happened here? What stories does this site have to tell?” So begins the ESRI Story Map “If Walls Could Talk: The Story of the Hicks Property” – a project undertaken to improve public education of a landscape frequently visited but not understood.

Honor Award for Analysis and Planning- Kay Curry, University of Arkansas Community Design Center, Fay Jones School of Architecture & Design: Slow Street: A New Town Center for Mayflower, Arkansas.

The central Arkansas town of Mayflower, a bedroom community of Little Rock, was struck by an EF4 tornado in April 2014. The tornado, which also struck nearby Vilonia, was the nation’s deadliest that year, killing 16 people and destroying more than 400 homes. Thirty percent of Mayflower’s businesses were impacted. A recovery assistance team led by FEMA worked with Mayflower on planning a new town center in response to the desire for a walkable neighborhood that is mixed use with a sense of place. The outcome emerged through multiple public processes in a community without any tradition of urbanism.